Football: Riley cut from CFL’s Lions

Former Cal quarterback Kevin Riley was released by the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League on Sunday. Riley signed with the Lions last month, one of three rookie quarterbacks brought in by the Lions to participate in their rookie training camp last week. With regular training camp about to start, the Lions decided they couldn’t keep all six of their quarterbacks. Riley was the odd man out.

Jonathan Okanes

Jonathan Okanes is in his fourth year covering Cal's football team. Previously, he covered Cal's men's basketball team for four years. He can also be followed on Twitter at twitter.com/OkanesonCal.

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Hope he’ll go home and hang with his friends. THey will be a great comfort to him in this sadness. Friends are so good to have.

ScottyBear

Hopefully he is still recovering and gets his knee strength back and will find another pro opportunity.

Larry

I hear the Houston Texans need backup quarterback. Their back up QB’s suck.

calgrizzlybear

well at least he has a CAL degree to fall back on …he will be just fine

BlueNGold

Good thing Riley will not have to try to fall back on a degree from the u. of sleazy cheaters. He would really be screwed then.

Kent Wilson

Did anyone really think Riley is a Pro caliber QB?

LR

Kent,

Yes, he is. Good TD/INT ratio (= generally good decision making) on a mediocre team in a major conference. Add scrambling ability, a bowl MVP and some great BG wins and, yes, you have the makings of a QB with pro potential — be it CFL or AFL.

I’m reminded of Mike Pawlawski as I type this. He didn’t get his shot with Wyche, although he probably should’ve on leadership ability alone, but he was reasonably successful in the AFL. Riley has far superior physical talents and would probably perform very well as a mobile QB in the CFL — this assuming his knee recovers fully.

I hope this isn’t his last attempt. I think the CFL makes a lot of sense for someone with his skill set.

covinared

LR-Riley’s propensity to choke outweighs his strengths.

BobbyG

I wish him the best. He was a very good Cal QB.

noduck

kevin never had a chance in the league. his technical and strategic skills were barely adequate for college football. he would get embarrassed by professional defenses, even behind a good line.

it’s a shame. i rooted for him to the end.

MoreNCsarecoming

Time out posters. Before you can call someone a pro caliber QB he must possess rudimentary skills. He must be able to complete a 5 yard swing pass out of the backfield without throwing it at the RBs who gets hit so hard by a safety that green stuff comes out of his mouth as he lay on the turf. He must not lead his receivers into the killing zone. Taylor May’s highlight reel came as courtesy from Riley.

I am sure there are other ones too but I will call a timeout to let you posters respond.

LR

Cov,

A bad flub in crunch time as a freshman and an unforced pick 6 against UNR doesn’t = a propensity to choke.

Do we really need to rehash the history we all know so well? You can’t possibly develop talent behind center if you can’t settle on an OC, you don’t have a legit QB coach and you imperil your young QB behind a garbage line managed by a guy who doesn’t care. It just won’t work.

GOGO Bears

Taylor Mays. He was Pete’s boy, right? Pete Carroll — that loyal and sincere coach — he got Mays to stay an extra year. Pete must’ve felt a lot of debt to Mays — I bet Pete took good care of Mays, didn’t he?

How did that all turn out?

Kent Wilson

Hey LR,

Time will tell about Riley, but from what I saw on the field at Cal, he was never consistently good. Certainly, he had some very good moments, but he had equally some fairly poor outings.

It’s possible that he could imnprove and become a more consistent QB, but that’s not likely, since we saw zero improvement from him over 4 years at Cal.

I wish him the best, but I think he should focus on his career outside of playing football.

covinared

LR- its not just the OSU game. He unraveled against usc 3 years in a row, and in Eugene in 2009. Don’t forget the Nevada audible last year. Some times he would completely disappear. Sometimes he was spectacular, but rarely in a big game against a top notch opponent.